


Serenade

by jillyfae



Series: Sweetest of All Sounds [20]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Love at First Sight, Romance, Sexual Content, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-01-17 00:50:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12353979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: How much easier, that first meeting in Kirkwall, without a Blight or a simmering Gallows or Chantry vows in the way.ie an excuse for unrepentant sap <3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this started with a Gaider comment which led to Rock Band AUs sweeping the DA fandom that were, on the whole, less than kind to Sebastian. This was, truthfully, YEARS ago, but I had half a start of a fic sitting in my WIP folder for most of that time, and [Fictober](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/166413993652) inspired a new opening. So I guess I'm going to try and finish it now.

She loves to sing.

She loves the way it feels in her chest, in her throat, the way she can feel the whole world breathe with her when she closes her eyes. She loves the way a song sounds in the shower, different from in the car, from the way her voice fills a club or drifts away down a hallway. She loves her band, loves finding the melody hidden in the words Isabela and Merrill write, loves the drive and weight Aveline gives them, the heartbeat of her bass tying them all together, pushing them forward whenever they might pause too long and get lost.

She loves people too, though Isabela sighs and Merrill squints and Aveline rolls her eyes when she tries to say so; she honestly _likes_ meeting new people, likes buying a round of drinks, joining in a toast, likes meeting some stranger's eyes and smiling. She loves seeing them smile back. 

She'd even kinda liked the terrible third-shift gas-station job she'd had once, chatting with travellers and students pulling all nighters and the other third-shifters who'd forgotten their lunches grabbing candy bars and frozen burritos and tar-black coffee.

She was not as fond of cleaning the bathrooms every morning. People could be great, but fuck they were also disgusting.

Now if she's up 'til 3am she's probably got a gig.

She loves the energy of the crowd during a show, the high after a performance, loves it enough she knows she'll never stop, even if they never manage a gig anywhere beyond the local college/club circuit, even if her coffee addiction rises to dangerous levels to compensate for Monday mornings.

Basically, she has the best side-gig she could ever imagine, joy and work and people and always more music to find, to love, to sing.

Except for the five minutes right before she goes on stage, when her stomach twists and her throat burns and the crowd sounds like a beast just waiting to devour her.

She's almost ditched every single show they've ever had, and is afraid, each time, that this is the one when she'll crack, when she'll stand on stage and look out at all those eyes, bright and brittle and hungry, and open her mouth and not make a sound.

So she sneaks a look at them, before she goes on. Finds one person to sing to, someone she's never met before, probably never will again, one person who will listen, until her voice is steady and her nerves are strong and she stops thinking and starts feeling again.

Someone pretty, someone not too drunk or wasted, if she can find them. 

Tonight she finds Donnic, _that won't work, know him already,_ but next to him, _oh Andraste thank you, that one._

She settles, she grins. She found someone very pretty this time. She gets on stage, she finds him, meets his eyes, _impossible eyes,_ and can barely hear Merrill's first beat, almost forgets to breathe, and for the first time in her life misses her cue entirely.

Isabela covers, a shift in her chords, a pose and a wink and the crowd laughs and she blinks, and she inhales, and this time she sings.

She sings the whole song to him, the whole set, not just the usual first few bars, and he never once looks away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/169893747043)

He can feel the warmth of her even across the room. The fire that had burned behind her eyes is banked now that she's off stage, but not gone entirely. It's still there, waiting, _waiting for him_ , a bright flash as she lifts her head and meets his gaze.

She goes still, wonderfully, completely still. So still he thinks the world itself may have paused along with his thoughts, gifting him this one endless moment. She's so still the woman beside her notices, elbows her, shifts her weight until she can follow the line of her gaze and look at him. Her friend, the guitar player, he thinks, does something with a lifted eyebrow and a quirk of full lips that makes him flush, heat beneath his skin, thoughts buzzing and bumping together incoherently. He isn't even doing anything! Isn't even thinking anything inappropriate, had been simply caught in the sight of her, but now, now he knows how much he'd like to let his mind wander down that path, heat and skin and possibilities.

But he doesn't, because she's moving now, stepping closer, a graceful shift of weight as she weaves around their gear, stops a step too far away. "You," she whispers, barely loud enough to hear, and there is something caught in his throat, his heart, that she seems as lost as he is. He manages a smile, a shrug, resists the singularly odd inclination to bow, hand on heart, as if they were in one of his Grandmother's favorite movies, luscious tales of chivalry and honor and love.

There's that flash of light in her eyes again, warm and not quite hidden, the slightest beginnings of an answering smile, a hint of a caught breath as she speaks again, "you're taller than I expected." 

"You're not," he says before he thinks. He almost groans aloud at how stupid that sounded, but still. Her presence had filled the club, larger than life, and now, now she's almost _small_ , her head barely as high as his shoulders, and he's trying desperately not to wonder what it would feel like to be pressed against her, surrounding her, the heat of her almost burning, her lack of height clearly no lack of will, no lack of desire to pit against his own. 

He sees her eyes go wide, a swallow down her throat, and he wonders if somehow he's given away his thoughts, or if she managed similar ones all on her own, and he makes himself lift his hands in an apology. The heat between them shimmers, a fleeting mirage, not quite gone, just faded, just enough to allow her smile to return, to widen, to let loose a laugh, bright and brilliant. 

Her laugh is even better than her singing.

"I know, even my baby sister's taller than I am." 

He feels himself chuckle at that, an echo of her own amusement, and he watches her eyelids close at the sound, the curl of her lashes above her cheeks, a lift of her chin before she opens her eyes again. 

"If he's gonna stand around, at least make him help!" Her friend shouts over at them, the smirk audible in her voice as their shared stare is broken, their attention shifting towards her instead. "Shit's not gonna grow legs and get in the van by itself." 

She turns back to him, and _oh_ , she has such a smile, half her mouth curling up in satisfied amusement. He can feel it, heat in his stomach, a tremble between each breath, and he wishes again he was in an old movie, could kneel before her and lay his heart at her feet, could make it clear she had won his loyalty with that smile. 

Instead he just nods, and she grins, and that's even worse, better than the half-smile, so perfect it hurts. She tilts her head, chin pointing at some black box of a thing that apparently needs lifting, so he does, and turns around, and she's biting her lip, her eyes flicking down, and up, and her friend whistles, and he's quite sure he's blushing and he's equally sure he doesn't care, because he's oddly enamored of her teeth, that hint of white pressing against her lip, and he's clearly lost his mind, and he doesn't care about that either, so long as she smiles at him again. 

She does, but softly this time, and she ducks her head, almost shy. It's hard to tell with bad lighting and the warm dark golden tones of her skin, but he thinks she's blushing too, and then she picks up another mysterious bit of gear and turns, and he follows her down the hall. 

He has a moment of gratitude for the loose cut of his clothes, because she's wearing _leather trousers_ , and if he wasn't already in love with her hair and her eyes and her smiles (and he's not about to admit he's already started a catalogue of them in his thoughts, in order of how much they make his chest ache) he'd have fallen in love with her hips. 

And he really ought to stop thinking in terms of love when he doesn't even know her _name._

But he's not going to, he knows, and he hopes he at least manages to avoid saying it out loud and scaring her off, because Maker knows even in his thoughts he's aware he sounds like some sort of creepy bastard groupie. 

It is fucking freezing outside, just enough of a wind to make his fingers clench with cold as they step outside. It's unpleasant enough it cuts through the fog of his thoughts; he quickens his step and shoves when she tells him to, and he has to climb half in the back of the van to get his box all the way in, which has the benefit of cutting the breeze. He twists back around, hand outreached so she can pass her gear to him, and she makes such a sound when he does, almost pained and almost a groan, low and soft and short, but still he hears it, and her lips are parted and his nostrils flare and he's hot again, despite the chill. 

"Maker's breath, remind me not to have you do that again or I'm going to ask to ride you home instead of the van." 

It's his turn to grunt, low in his throat, even as her eyes widen and her hand covers her mouth and he almost reaches a hand out to touch her cheek, to feel if her skin is hot, as hot as his soul burns. 

He finishes his turn, sits on the end of the van, the edge of the frame cold beneath this thighs, her legs just past his knees, and he wants to reach out and tug her closer, test out both their resolve, but instead he reminds himself to breathe, takes her gear and sets it down inside the van to give himself time, time to let the chill metal cool the heat beneath his skin until he can ignore how very much his cock likes her suggestion 

How very much all of him likes her suggestion. 

"That's not at all discouraging, you know, once I figure out what 'that' was." 

"Lifting things?" She murmurs, and finally drops her hand from her mouth so he can see her latest smile, a vaguely awkward twist of lips, amused and embarrassed and adorable, her other hand gesturing rather helplessly in the direction of his face. "Looking?" 

He laughs, a ragged breathy aching sort of amusement, and reaches out, though all he does he touch her hand, pull just a little, enough for her to step forward, past his knees, until her thighs almost brush the van, and he ignores the throb of awareness, how close she is, _so close_ , and not nearly close enough, in favor of the warmth of her fingers between his. "I'll not be stopping either of those, sorry, especially if it means you look at me like that." He cannot resist, his free hand rising to brush a thumb along her cheek, beneath the shadow of her lashes; he can feel her shiver beneath his fingers, and he doesn't think it's from the cold. 

"You do know you're in the way?" 

He doesn't know the voice, long-suffering and kind, both at once, but he recognizes Donnic's trying not to laugh cough right after it, so he assumes the bass player, and shoves himself free of the van, moving back towards the warmth of the club. 

She doesn't let go of his hand. 

In fact she twists her wrist just enough to hold it tighter, her fingers interlaced with his. 


	3. Chapter 3

The after show high never does go away.

She's quite sure it's his fault.

No one person should be that gorgeous, especially not when combined with the sweetest smile she's ever seen.

She thinks she's fallen and hit her head and is hallucinating, for just one moment, when she sees him after the show. She'd never thought she would see him again, the man who'd done a hell of a lot more than just help her get over her stage-fright, who'd caught something of her very soul when she sang to him.

Just for him, that entire set, though she isn't planning to admit that to anyone.

He clearly has no idea what he's doing, which is impossibly endearing. It's comforting, too, that she's not the only one rather stunned by the sudden connection, the heat in the air and the desire for someone she doesn't know at all.

But he's friends with Donnic, who is clearly one of the nicest men ever born, even allowing for Aveline's biases. So that's promising.

Plus his shoulders are perfect, and she's never even been one to particularly admire shoulders before. She thinks she might be in love with the slightest curl of hair on the nape of his neck, the way it's not quite centered above his spine. She's certainly falling for the length of his stride, and the impossible blue of his eyes whenever he turns his head to look at her. Which he seems to do as often as he breathes, as often as her heart beats. It feels inevitable that everyone else should leave, and they should still be together, hand in hand.

She wants to push him against a wall and kiss him 'til they're both breathless.

She wants him to take her home and have his hopefully extremely wicked way with her.

More, even, she wants to know why it feels like she knows him, why the heat between them soothes rather than burns, why she wants to close her eyes and listen to him speak forever.

Beyond the obvious fact that his voice is delicious, of course, and she has an ache low in her chest as she wonders what he sounds like when he sings.

If he sings? It would be a tragedy, with a voice like that, not to sing.

If he'd sing for her?

They end up at a diner, rather than either of their beds, and it's nice, that slow thrum of anticipation, even as they drink terrible coffee and eat greasy appetizers and she watches his eyes as he watches her hands move as she talks, and she tries (and mostly fails) not to shiver at the warmth of his voice and the thickening of his accent as time passes.

She still doesn't know his name, hasn't given him hers, doesn't know his favorite food or how he grew up, (though the accent makes the where pretty obvious). But there's a rhythm to their conversation, a pattern, complicated, perhaps, but there. It's almost a melody building between them, and she can feel when he'll move, and she leans the same way, and their fingers meet. His smile is devastating, and her shoes are bumping against his and she's holding his hand and she's at a crappy diner at five in the morning with someone she only first saw a few hours ago and she thinks she's falling in love and she gives up trying to understand it because it's not going to make sense. That's part of why it's perfect.

_Maker, he's pretty._

"Shit."

She blinks, and sits up straight, suddenly aware now she's stopped that she'd been listing to the side and sighing dreamily, rather like she used to do when watching the cheesiest sort of movie made for fourteen-year-old girls. (Not that she doesn't still like to watch them sometimes, but he certainly doesn't need to know that yet.) His lips tighten and a scowl creases his eyebrows and an echo of something like fear shadows his eyes.

"I have to..." he gestures vaguely towards the door. "I mean..." this time there's a lift of his chin towards the clock on the wall. He takes a deep breath and tries again. "I have a date."

She's frozen, and she's going to kill him, or else she's going to die, right here, take them all with her and Isabela's going to have to identify the bodies. Her stomach is cold and her fingers are tight and she has no idea what her face is doing but her heart is breaking. His eyes widen and his hands are on her shoulders and his forehead is leaning against hers and he's swearing again, his breath brushing against her face. "Fuck, sorry, not that kind of date, I take my Guarantor to Service and brunch every Sunday and I don't think she'd appreciate wrinkled clothes and the fact that I smell like stale beer and greasy spoon."

Her breath escapes, ragged and uneven, almost a laugh, relief a shock down her spine. _He takes an Aunt or something to Chant every week, oh my gosh is he even real?_ As usual she's talking before her brain catches up with anything, and she says, "I think you smell divine."

His soft laugh is almost a groan, his eyes blinking closed, his hands shifting to gently rest along her neck, his thumbs against her jaw, his nose brushing hers and she can feel his breath on her lips and maybe this is how she dies, temptation and heat and desire, and then he's slipping away, back into his seat, and she feels herself giggling, because he'd been leaning across the table to reach her and a couple members of the waitstaff are blinking in their general direction, despite the slowly building breakfast crowd, probably because they just had a suddenly excellent view of his ass.

He lifts just one eyebrow at her, and she snorts a terribly undignified sort of laugh, and covers her mouth, and feels herself blushing as she shakes her head, _dear Lady I'm ridiculous._

He smiles at her, the slightest lift of his mouth and crinkling eyes, she's not even sure that's a word, but it seems to fit, and his entire existence is completely improbable but she's not about to let a silly thing like reality get in her way at this point.

"Do you have time to walk me home?"

The shadow in his eyes fades as his smile widens. "I'd be delighted."

He offers her his arm once they step outside, and she almost stumbles, because _who does that?_ But she doesn't refuse, and leans in close enough she can smell the leather of his jacket, and alright, yeah, they're both a bit eau de greasy club, but beneath that he smells warm, and almost spicy, some odd lingering combination of sweat and skin and what seems likely to have been very expensive aftershave and whatever he'd gotten up to the day before, and she's probably smiling like an idiot, but it's a surprisingly nice walk, even if it's just a bit too early for proper sunlight or a hint of warmth.

Not that she's cold, heat beneath her skin, heat against her side, heat caught in her throat as they reach her building, and all he does is look at her, as if afraid to break the spell, as if afraid he'll never see her again if he says good-bye.

She ought to ask for his number, or give him hers.

Or her email; she dropped her phone in the sink yesterday and it was still in the bowl of rice on the counter, and she'd hate to miss his call if he ...

When he?

She doesn't want to wait for a call, for a conversation, for making plans or dancing around each other's words, and maybe she's afraid too, afraid to let him go, afraid that whatever this is won't still be there, won't fill the air between them when she sees him again.

But she wants it.

She refuses to concede that this could be that fragile.

She steps in close to his chest, fingers gripping the edges of his jacket's collars, pulling, just a little, making sure he can't back up, looking up into his eyes, not bothering to hide the catch of her breath at having him so close, the flush of her cheeks from staring up at his face. "We're apartment E," she whispers, she can't seem to make herself speak up, but she knows he can hear every word, "if you'd like to come back, when you're done."

She can feel his swallow, and the brush of his fingers along her cheek, and she shivers again, just like last time, but not from the cold, oh no, she's burning up, and her eyes close as his thumb moves down, just to the side of her lips.

She inhales, one sharp gasp, at the feel of his mouth, lips brushing at the edge of her lashes as he kisses the mole beneath her eye, and her fingers clench and she can feel herself trembling when he kisses the one above her mouth, and when his mouth finally finds hers, an impossibly soft brush of lips, a fleeting caress, her heart fucking _stops_ , and then he's pulling away, his mouth pulling just a little against her bottom lip, as if he wishes he could bring her with him. Even though he's gone almost as soon as he began she can't breathe, she can't move, eyes still closed and face tilted up towards him, still feeling his hand trembling against her cheek, _her body trembling at his touch,_ his breath warm against her mouth, and she can feel the shift of his weight tugging at her heart, like a string pulling away, pulling too tight, pulling until the tension sings through her chest, down her spine.

His face is flushed when she makes herself open her eyes, and he has the most beautiful mouth she's ever seen. She can feel an answering heat beneath her skin, and his lips are soft beneath her fingertips as she lifts her hand, and his eyes are too wide, too dark, at the contact; something sharp twists between her ribs before his eyes close, and he slips his other hand behind hers, turns his head and places one gentle kiss in the middle of her palm. She's afraid if he kisses her again that her heart will shatter. Afraid if he doesn't she'll never feel it beat again.

"Or you could stay?" She hears her own voice, whisper soft, before she even realizes she's thinking it, wishes she could swallow the uncertain lift she knows they both heard, could make it clear how sure she is, even if she doesn't know why, doesn't know what is _wrong_ with her, why this doesn't feel wrong at all, why this feels more right than any decision she's made in her life.

Not that that's saying much; the bar for actual _good_ decisions is pretty low, considering some of the bad ones she's had to live with.

She still thinks this is the right one.

Will always be the right one.

"Please," his voice is rough and low and she almost whimpers at the feel of it, an uneven spill of heat down her spine until her toes curl in her boots. She almost laughs in relief, almost sobs, is terribly afraid she was right and she did die while sitting in that diner and now she's dreaming, a ghost living out its final fantasy.

_Might as well make it a good one?_

She manages a smile, though she can still feel a crooked sort of tremble when she breathes.

He turns half-away from her, pulls out his phone to send a message. It doesn't take him long. He turns back, hands spread wide. He's an offering,  _here I am, just for you._  

She reaches for his hand, but he's stepped closer and he's there, _right there._  It's inevitable, like sunset or moons-rise, like the taste of sorrow in a hospice garden, or the startled lift of laughter when you've stayed up late enough for it to be early again; it's as inescapable as fate, kissing him again.

His fingers spread across her back, bracing her as he bends down into the kiss. Such a kiss, warm and soft and endless. His lips stay on hers as she holds him tight, arm across his shoulders, fingers gripping his hair, toes barely balancing any of her weight as his arms tighten around her. His breath is hers as she pulls and he pulls and they're pressed together, hard enough she can feel the buttons of her blouse pressed between them, each curving edge clean and almost sharp against her stomach, hard enough she can't tell if the heavy uneven rhythm in her chest is her heart-beat or his.

Someone slams a door further down the street, and they startle apart. She's flushed, and his lips are parted as if he doesn't know what to say, and he has the most amazing eyes she's ever seen. She reaches out a hand, and he takes it, and she takes him inside.


End file.
